Heather Mills' VBites vegan food firm collapses into administration

V Bites, the vegan food company founded by Heather Mills, has collapsed into administration.

The former model, who founded the company in 1993, said the shutdown of the business had been "extremely distressing".

V Bites offered plant-based alternatives to meat, fish and dairy products and Mills had worked with fast food chains including McDonald's.

The business had also produced vegan food for French ski resorts and ran cafés in Hove and Chester in the 2010s.

In a lengthy statement, the former wife of Sir Paul McCartney blamed the administration on a "combination of corporate greed and poor management" as well as rising costs and manufacturing difficulties.

Mills said she had personally invested "tens of millions of pounds" into the business and offered "every solution I feasibly could to keep it going".

She added: "Brexit has been an utter disaster for the supply and maintenance of the sector and the government doubtless has a lot to answer for.

"So do the opportunistic utility companies and their broker networks, that through an array of nefarious practices now under investigation have hiked up prices so that companies simply cannot afford to operate."

James Clark and Howard Smith from Interpath Advisory were appointed joint administrators to VBites Foods Limited on 11 December.

The company's manufacturing site in Peterlee, County Durham continues to trade while a buyer is sought for the business with all 29 staff retained.

Administrators have retained 25 staff at the VBites manufacturing site in Corby, Northamptonshire, but 24 jobs have been made redundant.

Plant-based meat brands have struggled this year amid a slowdown in demand for their products.

Leeds-based Meatless Farm laid off most of its 100 staff and fell into administration earlier this year, before being purchased by vegan brand VFC.

Plant & Bean, which is based in Lincolnshire and supplied companies including Tesco, also called in administrators in June.

Middlesborough-based Marlow Foods, which makes meat alternative Quorn products, posted a £15.5m loss last year amid rising costs and a slowdown in supermarket sales.

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